Still listening to the elevator music

Long time waiting, ugh and i'm not the most patient person. For a house this size i just have to be. After the slab pour we had the regular January, where all tradies go on holidays; then they didn't start back at work until late February; which put jobs back.

Then as i we got our windows delivered on site, the main carpenter broke his arm :(

So we have been endlessly waiting for the backup crew to finish his jobs so they can start on mine. Again with a small builder these thing happen; but its comforting to know they they don't just grab the yellow pages and ring the first chippie listed under "AAA Adelaide Carpenters" -i came up with that, please don't flog me if there is an actual company listed under that!
So we get the same guys to build the house, this week putting up the frame externally and moving walls internally, when we make changes fingers crossed we don't

There has been some good news, we have as mentioned our windows arrived on site; and one word they are huge, tinted and laminated for the front should work out well.

We have also inspected our wall and floor panels, as they have been all completed at Chaplin's just down the road. Its not a great photo but you get the idea, the floor panels are 12mm boards with EPS Followed by another 12mm of MgO, together with regular yellow-tongue and soundstop we are hoping this should really help with the sound transmission through the floor. It was significantly cheaper than concrete floor.

 We have also installed our 22 ton rain water tank; our little supervisor was on site to point and shout orders.

Over the weekends we have been sorting out plans for our verandah, that will go around the northern and eastern side of the house. This area will be a nice large outdoor room with our new bbq (we just won on auction) and an island i am in the process of designing. Along the fence-line we will have 600mm space from the verandah to fill with plants; We drove to The Fern Forest down south for some idea's. They have alot of bamboo + ferns and palms on display together with lots of knowledge for location and planting. We like the clumping bamboo here's some ideas we picked out:

Have been shopping for our dinning room table, and found some very nice tables with insane price tags; this table here is listed at over 5k depending on what wood chosen, again more money but i can dream :)

Also have been working on the plans for digging up the backyard to service all the plumbing we want underground, like the plumbing for tank, bore, garden, spa and aquaponics thats going in. Very rough mud map:

 

Over the last few weeks the slab has been settling in, hairline cracks have appeared, this of course is very normal, especially in the corners. We did however find this in the bathroom, its the mesh just below the surface; a screed and tiles will fix this issue.

During the summer we even managed a couple of days up the river, to this insane view. Hopefully i can update this blog with some more good news this week!